Canon

Star Trek's canon has been a matter of some debate for the Star Trek fandom. Some things are almost universally agreed upon, such as the non-canon status of the various novelizations[note 1] and the animated series, both of which were decided by Gene Roddenberry.[note 2] In contrast, it is a good rule to say that all TV episodes (with the exception of the aforementioned animated series) as well as all movies are canon, although some argue that all content that was not specifically "Roddenberry-approved" is not canon. This would include all Star Trek media after his death in 1991: six movies, the nearly half of The Next Generation's episodes of which Roddenberry was not involved in, and every season of all proceeding three TV series, with the exception of the first season of Deep Space Nine, which Roddenberry, while not involved in the writing process, gave his approval on. The argument of approved-Roddenberry canon is also argued against by the fact that Roddenberry notoriously changed canon on an episode-by-episode basis.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek: The Original Series originally ran for three seasons on television. It has a very active fanbase that started from nearly the moment the show debuted and still flourishes today. Fans have not only kept this series alive after it was nearly canceled after its second season, but also kept it going through many years where there was no new material with their production of fanworks, their organization of conventions and their devotion to their fandom. The popularity of the show in reruns eventually brought about its resurrection as one of the large media franchises.

Star Trek was revived as an animated series (TAS) in the 70s by Filmation & Norway Corp., and as a series of films in the 80s and 90s by Paramount. A Star Trek movie had been proposed years before, but was rushed into production soon after 1977's Star Wars. Far more successful than the TV series, the blockbuster Trek films funded the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation was similar to the Star Trek: TOS concept: a large, diverse crew on a ship called the USS Enterprise travels the galaxy, meets aliens, and spreads goodwill. This time, the ship was even bigger, and there were more aliens. TNG brings the Star Trek timeline a century forward to the 24th Century, a time in which the Federation that the characters belong to has become a stable galactic power. The militarism of Star Trek is toned down with more focus on diplomacy.

TNG ultimately ran an unheard of (for a science fiction show) seven seasons, bowing out by choice to make way for a series of movies starring its main cast. Hugely popular, TNG is the only other Star Trek series to rival the main cast in media familiarity.

TNG is what made Star Trek big in other countries, like Germany, where the fan clubs in the 1990s grew rapidly and the fan scene was very active.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the third live-action TV show of the Star Trek franchise. It takes place on a space station on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant. DS9 is arguably the most ethnically and gender diverse show in the ST universe, with multiple characters of color and female characters in lead positions.

Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager is the fourth live-action television series set in the Star Trek universe. After three shows focusing on a male captain, Voyager features the first female captain as the main character of a Star Trek franchise.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Star Trek: Enterprise was the fifth live-action TV series in the Star Trek universe. It was a prequel, set earlier in the timeline than any of the other series, and intended to show how the United Federation of Planets came to be. Despite a change in showrunners in the third and fourth season, Enterprise ultimately only lasted four seasons, the first show since TOS to be canceled by the network.

Star Trek Reboot

Star Trek (2009) is the 11th movie in the Star Trek universe. It is a successful reboot of the original series with an alternate timeline that does not affect the preexisting canon in the TOS era. Same characters, different actors, new adventures, and everything is possible.

Star Trek Into Darkness is the 12th movie in the Star Trek universe. It is set a few months/years after the events of Star Trek (2009).

Star Trek Beyond is the 13th movie in the Star Trek Universe. It is set approximately three years into the five year mission (stardate 2263.02).

Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery was the sixth live-action TV series in the Star Trek universe. It was a prequel, set in 2256, earlier in the timeline than TOS. It featured a main female character who was not a Starfleet captain, Michael Burnham, but the adopted human daughter of Sarek and Amanda, and therefore a previously unknown (to the audience) sister to Spock (and Sybok). Season 1 follows her career downfall and path to redemption. Discovery was the first Star Trek series offered on the subscription service, CBS All Access (plus Bell Media's Space, Z and Crave in Canada, and Netflix internationally). During the hiatus between Seasons 1 and 2, four Short Treks were released, mini-episodes drawing on aspects of the parent show.

Season 2 reintroduced Captain Christopher Pike, Number One and Spock, not long after their adventure in The Cage, the first TOS pilot. A spin-off series featuring these characters is Star Trek: Brave New World.

Season 3 saw a fresh story arc following the USS Discovery in its new location in space and time, as predicted in the Short Treks episode, "Calypso". The former Emperor Georgiou is anticipated to spin-off into a separate series, Star Trek: Section 31.

Star Trek: Short Treks

During the hiatus between Seasons 1 and 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, four Short Treks mini-episodes were released on CBS All Access, drawing on aspects of Discovery. They also became available with Season 2 on Netflix internationally. During the next hiatus, six new "Short Treks", from several points in the continuum, included three mini-episodes with Spock, Pike and Number One, two animated episodes and a live-action prequel to Star Trek: Picard.

Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek: Picard was the seventh live-action TV series in the Star Trek universe. A two-decades later sequel to events chronicled in Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek (2009), it featured Jean-Luc Picard and the political fallout from the destruction of the Romulan homeworld. It was the second Star Trek series offered on the subscription service, CBS All Access (and Bell Media's Space, Z and Crave in Canada), but the first for Amazon Prime internationally.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (animated)

Star Trek: Lower Decks was an animated series set in the Star Trek universe. The tone of the series was light and comedic. It followed the adventures of junior Starfleet officers on the starship USS Cerritos in the year 2380, a year after Star Trek: Nemesis.[1]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

After much secrecy, a full-blown Pike series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, was eventually announced.[2] It was the eighth live-action TV series in the Star Trek universe, and promised to revisit the theme of space exploration in more self-contained episodes.

The Star Trek franchise has also spawned a series of non-canonical tie-in novels, first published by Bantam Books, and then Simon & Schuster (in their Timescape, Pocket Books, Wanderer and Gallery imprints). A few fans went from writing fan fiction to pro novels for the first time.

For a time, the Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation novels were only allowed to be single-book adventures with no ongoing storyline or shared original characters. With the end of Star Trek on television, these rules were relaxed. Spin-off novel series include the DS9 Relaunch (ongoing adventures for the DS9 characters), Voyager's return to the Delta Quadrant, and "Titan", the adventures of Captain Riker on the ship he attained in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis. Books concentrating on these 24th Century storylines have seemingly come to a hiatus with the arrival of Star Trek: Picard.

Starting with the "Star Trek: New Frontier" series by Peter David, the line expanded to include novel-only series. Other novel-only series include "Starfleet Corp of Engineers" and "Vanguard", set on a Federation space station in Kirk's time. Star Trek: Enterprise spawned a post-series line of novels, Rise of the Federation.

The tie-in novels are not always popular with some fans and there is much discussion about them, and why they fail, in letterzines. Despite their paracanonical status, some details from the books have become fanon or canon. For example, Hikaru Sulu did not have a first name in canon until Star Trek VI, when a name used in novels was adopted.[3] Kirk's parents' names and Uhura's first name, now also canonical, also came from the licensed novels.

The arrival of Star Trek: Discovery coincided with a move to trade paperback as the standard release for Gallery's tie-in novels. Most of the "Discovery" novels are prequels to events in the streaming series. Most new books now have unabridged audios, available as downloadable files and CD sets (from Blackstone Publishing for Simon & Schuster Audio).[4] Excitement generated in anticipation for Star Trek: Picard even saw a return to hardcover prequel novels.

Fans have created fansites to collect information about the novels and other licensed Trek-related materials: see below.

The producers of Star Trek had been a little slow in realizing the profit that could be made from fans. It wasn't until Equicon 1974 that Paramount Studios began taking notice of some of the merchandising opportunities beneath the Star Trek franchise. From a notice in the pocket program:

ILLEGAL SALE OF Star Trek ITEMS cannot be constantly policed by EQUICON -- nor do we want to do it -- but infractions will be reported, and purchasers risk losing both money illegally-bought items! It's too bad the practice takes place, since sale of illegal ST items is, in fact, STEALING from people who would get the legal royalties -- the creator of the show & ST people! Supporting this very un-Star Trek philosophy is highly illogical for anyone calling himself a FAN!

Anyone caught selling (legal or illegal) items anywhere on the convention floor outside of the Sales Room will be charged a $25 table fee. The ONLY exception is fanzine -- amateur publications -- which may be carried around and sold out-of-hand.

some 1994 commentary by Glenn Lash, printed in A Difficult Concept: "'1970: Star Trek?! Nobody's interested in that dog! Leave it to Lincoln Enterprises! I've got bigger fish to fry!' 1994: "... We've got the two TV series, with another in the works, the movies, 4 lines of books, 3 comics, videos, toys, board games, t-shirts, that QVC crap... Hey! Isn't it about time for a new cartoon series?!'"

The official marketing people's slow response's to fan demand regarding Star Trek merchandise was evident to Franz Joseph, a fan who'd created a set of detailed blueprints. Before the 1974 convention, Joseph had attempted to get permission to sell his creation he had titled Booklet of General Plans. These plans later became the Star Fleet Technical Manual:

...months later, with a major Trek convention approaching, Joseph had still not received official permission to sell his work. Bypassing Roddenberry, he made a one-time deal with Paramount to sell the “General Plans” (the Enterprise blueprints) at the upcoming convention. Equicon 1974 took place in Los Angeles from April 12–14. Of the 500 copies of the General Plans Joseph had prepared, 410 sold immediately; 450 requests for additional copies were taken on postcards. Paramount, which received Joseph’s royalty check shortly thereafter, sensed it was on to something, and began negotiating for a mass-market release of both the General Plans and the still-growing Technical Manual. The results exceeded all expectations. The blueprints went on sale across the nation on May 24, 1975, selling out within two hours. By May 28, 50,000 additional copies had sold, prompting Ballantine to print 100,000 more. [5]

Once TPTB observed the voraciousness of fans' desire to buy all things Trek, they swung into action. This led to a common topic in newsletters and other fan correspondence -- that of the gullible fan who'd buy anything. From a fan in 1976: "I'm sure we all shudder when we stop to think about the sheer amount of $$ we put into our collections of ST memorabilia. Yes, I know it's for love or whatever, but it's still $$$... There are dealers at all the cons selling garbage... [such as] very poor quality offset or litho photographs... I stood and talked to dealers who have admitted that... Trekkies will buy anything and they are out for the big bucks." [6] From a fan in 1979: "This month several professional magazines, which are often referred to as prozines as the opposite of fanzines, will be the target for discussion. It is an indication of Star Trek's endurability that some of these attempts are only suitable for lining birdcages - the assumption is that Trek fans will buy anything, no matter how simple-minded the content. The brevity of their appearance is eloquent testimony as to the fallacy of this opinion. [("All About Star Trek Fan Clubs" (dreadful), "Media Spotlight" (not too bad), "Science Fantasy Film Classics" (very good)." [7] From a fan in 1988: "It is true that many fans will buy anything that has the words "Star Trek" on it, and that is sad, for in their zeal to own everything Trek-ish, people are getting ripped off." [8]

It was also profit that changed the nature of conventions. No longer did the celebrities attend cons for the cost of their travel, or for a very nominal fee. Instead, convention guests demanded large fees, something that propelled all sorts of other changes in how fans interacted with each other -- socially in person, via zines and other fanworks, and visibility.

Star Trek vs. Traditional Science Fiction Fandom

The huge influx of Star Trek fans in the late 1960s and the 1970s were an example of some of "free range" fannishness. There were many, many instances of the old school, general science fiction fans being very unhappy with the influx of Star Trek fans who they felt to be huge mobs who were uneducated in the ways of fandom; folks who didn't know the language, didn't know the customs, hadn't "paid their dues," were female[note 3], hadn't learned at the knees of the "right" people, supposedly weren't interested in "real" science fiction, and supposedly invaded traditional fannish places. And vice versa: Star Trek fans found the general SF/sf fans to be hostile, unwelcoming, snobbish, rigid, and overwhelmingly male. The culture clash was huge and long-lived and a major source of discussion.

Caption for this negative and mocking 1976 article from the UK paper, "The Guardian," "Trekkie with antennae; embarrassing to the SF straights," an example of the worst of mundane and fansplaining reporting about fans. Click to read.

the cover of MOTA #15 (March 1976), a science fiction zine portrays two stoic science fiction fans in an elevator at a con surrounded by Star Trek fans, art by Steve Stiles and Dan Steffan

Naturally, as Star Trek / media fandom became more established, it developed its own set of "in"-speak and ground rules. With the publication of slash fanfiction in the 1980s paranoia about using U.S. mail to distribute pornography created a clandestine, underground atmosphere. "Gatekeeper" practices evolved, with the word feral used to describe people who began participating in Trek fandom without an introduction.